


More than you could give me

by Polyhexian



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Hanahaki AU, M/M, POV Third Person, Post canon, Whump, good timeline ending, tg dies au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:00:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25501003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polyhexian/pseuds/Polyhexian
Summary: I've been listening to Lord Huron's "when the night is over" for eight hours straight have some angtst
Relationships: Cyclonus/Whirl (Transformers)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 30





	More than you could give me

Cyclonus stumbled onto the upper viewing deck with one hand on the hilt of his sword at his back and both optics looking for danger, but found none. He felt strangely out of place, uncertain and adrift. Whirl's comm had been so succinct, _come here_ , and he'd expected a fight to be brewing, and yet. 

"Oh, hey, there you are," said Whirl, and Cyclonus finally noticed him. He was standing a ways away, beneath the wide open glass panel of the viewing dome, claws behind his back. He looked strangely calm. 

"What is the issue?" Cyclonus asked, releasing his grip on his Great Sword, "What did you call on me for?"

Whirl made his way over to him. "That organic slag Nautica planted is blooming."

Cyclonus blinked. "The flowers?"

"Yeah, those things," Whirl turned and gestured at them, the rows of vibrant, colourful blooms that lined the walkway. They were beautiful, alien in nature, but distinctly belonging. 

"Are they… dangerous?" Cyclonus asked, tilting his head to the side.

"I don't think so," said Whirl, but he turned away, walking back along the flowers. Cyclonus fell in step beside him. 

"I don't understand. You called me… because the flowers are blooming?"

"Yeah." 

Cyclonus stared at him. This was deeply out of character for Whirl. He had been a bit off lately, now that he really thought about it, but he couldn't put a claw on why that might be. Well, he'd been sick, dealing with some kind of irritating vent stutter, but it was the bizarre pensive tone he had taken that was really out of character. It was strangely sentimental. It made Cyclonus uncomfortable. 

"So that's it? You don't actually need me?" he asked, and Whirl just hummed noncommittally in answer. Helm turned away, Cyclonus couldn't see his optic. "Right. Well. If you… don't actually need anything, then-"

"You have to go," Whirl said, though it didn't sound much like a question, more like an acknowledgement. 

"I was busy," Cyclonus told him. Whirl nodded, but didn't ask for any further details.

"Okay."

Cyclonus turned away, and left Whirl standing beside the flowers, back toward the elevator. "I will see you at home," Cyclonus said, keying the elevator doors back open, "Goodbye, Whirl."

"Goodbye, Cyclonus," said Whirl, quietly, without turning around. Strange, strange behaviour, but Whirl was always strange. He stepped into the elevator and the door shut behind him. 

He returned to his and Whirl's habsuite, and crossed his arms behind his back, returning to his thoughts as he regarded the starscape beyond their window. 

The last few years had been strange and difficult. Whirl was unpredictable, his thought processes unreadable, unfathomable. Five years ago he'd left Tailgate behind on necroworld, only to learn weeks later he had died there, alone. The next six months were a blur, a dark spot in his memories, hazy and unretreivable, but on the other end, Whirl was apparently his roommate, and every morning dragged him from recharge, shoved a cube of fuel into his claws and watched him until he finished it. 

Cyclonus would never admit it, but he had the sneaking suspicion that Whirl might have saved his life, in his own, weird way. 

He lingered until the wee hours, but Whirl didn't return, certainly having retired to the bar to get drunk and arrested as usual, and Cyclonus resigned himself to recharge in silence, without the thrum of another's engine on the other side of the room. Whirl was not there when he awoke, either. Certainly thrown in the brig again. 

Cyclonus made his way to the bridge for his rotation duty that day, resigned to eight unengaging hours of juggling monitor displays. 

Whirl was not at Swerve's after his shift. Cyclonus wondered what he had done to be in trouble for so long. Magnus usually relented and released him after he sobered up. Cyclonus check their room first to ensure he wasn't there, and then visited the brig to collect his roommate. 

He wasn't there either.

At this point Cyclonus was legitimately confused if not concerned and began calling around, but Whirl had been withdrawing, not just from him, but from everyone else, it seemed, in the past several weeks, since their last planetside stop. Nautica had only seen him once, and said he had been oddly serious, had asked questions about Skids, and left. He'd spoken briefly to Chromedome, though he wouldn't disclose what about, and left. He'd been skipping rotation for the last week, but that was so common Rodimus hadn't even taken note of it. 

He was still searching when Nautica called back an hour later and informed him she had found him, still in the garden. 

A parasite, Ratchet said. Some organic thing that took root in his system and choked his spark chamber. A quiet killer. 

It was beyond his comprehension. Ludicrous in strange new ways. Whirl was not one to ask for help, but he was hardly adverse to visiting the medical bay. Cyclonus couldn't understand, no matter how hard he tried, what could have compelled him to just… wait.

What had he been waiting for? 


End file.
